Tuesday, January 19, 2010

NO LONGER FOR HIRE: You wouldn't list Robert B. Parker as among the greatest of American writers, but he kept up a unique niche with his 38 Spenser novels. Every novel was tense, sparse, and gritty in the tradition of old-school private eye novelists like Raymond Chandler (whose last, unfinished, Marlowe novel was finished by Parker). However, despite the old-school nature of his writing, Parker's novels were always contemporary--basketball gambling, drug trafficking, and a diverse supporting cast. Add to that 9 novels involving small town police chief Jesse Stone, 6 involving Sunny Randall, a female Spenser figure, and a well-reviewed series of Westerns, and that's quite a body of work. Even now, in his late 70s, Parker regularly turned around 2-3 books a year. Not all of them were of the best quality, but he was writing, which he clearly loved--and there's something fitting that he apparently died at his desk today. (Also dead today--folk singer and mother of Rufus Wainwright Kate McGarrigle.)